July 11, 2008

View of the day-All present and accounted for in Hamill...just waiting for the grain to be ready.

Didn't have to early a day and it started out great with a call from the telephone company saying they were on their way out to hook us up with high speed internet! Yes indeed, even in this rural an area population 11 and miles from anywhere...one day hook up and no outrageous fees to do it...well...it's just great. A strong west wind blowing hard all day helped to keep the heat down and the flies away...another plus. The A/C even cut out in the evening.

We went into Winner to get harvest permits, fuel, some groceries and lunch...got the last three. Marilyn went into the treasurers office, as she does every year, to get the permits for the grain trucks...a task that usually takes 15 minutes, tops. When she got to the top of the stairs, there was a lineup of 12 people waiting to get their vehicle ownerships renewed. They had just implemented a change to the system that lets the tag, or plate, stay with the owner instead of with the vehicle, as it used to. It wasn't working too well as the lineup showed and there wasn't a fast lane for those of us wanting permits...one job on the list not done.

We had to pick up a new air filter for the General, so we went to the big John Deere dealer...what a pain in the...well, you know. Another streamlined system where the parts man is not allowed to take any cash, you have to go over to another desk where the summer student will take your cash/card, once she has received the invoice on her computer...which wasn't working. Eventually she did get the invoice, but every time the phone would ring, she would answer it and totally ignore whoever was waiting at the counter. First rule of commerce...serve the person who took the time to get of their a$$ and come down to your store...

Back in Hamill, we unloaded both rigs and fueled the combine, but we didn't want to get too carried away and get the whole list of 'todo's done all in one day, so it was back to the camper.

Al made a few phone calls, checking on the status of things further north, and checking on things at home. The storm that hit Yorkton did a lot of damage around town, and we did have a few branches down in our yard, but nothing serious...well, we won't know until they get the tree off the bus. Carlyle had a tornado go through town, tipping a few things over...here is a picture of the cloud taken by Marilyn's sister who lives a few miles from Carlyle.

Once supper was made and eaten, the long task of finding things to do to avoid doing dishes kept Marilyn up until the wee hours catching up on the phone with the folks from home and working on the blog...which finally got done after the dishes.

Thank God it's the weekend...